Billy Batson
Skills Billy himself is more or less a normal kid for his age - perhaps a little more straight-laced and thoughtful than most, but otherwise an ordinary boy. However, when Billy calls out the word "Shazam," he is struck by a bolt of magical lightning, and is physically transformed from a young teenager into Earth's Mightiest Mortal, the superhero Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel's powers are based on the abilities of six legendary heroes (they aren't gods in his universe) who grant him the following: -Wisdom of Solomon: Captain Marvel is granted high levels of intelligence, and able to utilise complex strategies and solve fairly complex logic problems. Though it does not make him a genius - not since Pandora sapped some of it's potency - it still makes him a force to be reckoned with mentally. -Strength of Hercules: granting him superhuman strength, this ability means that Marvel is capable of lifting a car or bus with only moderate amounts of effort. However, though he was once capable of lifting far heavier objects than this, his strength is not what it once was due once again to divine interference, and objects heavier than seven tonnes in weight will not be liftable by him. -Stamina of Atlas: Not only is he immensely strong, thanks to Atlas he can also endure impressive physical damage without harm, though he is not immune to it - a wellplaced explosion or large armour-piercing bullet will hit him like a battering ram, causing both immense pain and the equivalent trauma of a normal person being punched by a professional boxer, and anything more powerful than that will probably kill him. -Power of Zeus: Not the Zeus of Pandora, of course. This, aside from providing the lightning bolt that transforms him in the first place, also grants him some magical resistance, though not against lightning or electricity-based magic. -Courage of Achilles: The courage of the hero Achilles hardens Marvel's mind to danger and fear, allowing him to fight on even in the most harrowing and hopeless of circumstances, as well as allowing him to resist mild to moderate mental control. -Speed of Mercury: The simplest, this allows him to fly, as well as run at a top speed of 40mph. As mentioned, one of the things Billy is especially vulnerable to when in the form of Marvel is electric magic, which will forcibly transform him back into a teenage boy and temporarily prevent him from transforming again due to interference. Teenage boys with no real fighting skill are vulnerable to all sorts of things. Personality Billy is that rarest of things, a truly good person. Kind-hearted and thoughtful, he'll try to befriend anyone he thinks needs someone to talk to, and he's happy to joke around and generally act his age whenever he gets the chance. However, he also has a pronounced noble heroic streak; after accepting the powers he now has from the wizard Shazam (where the cry of transformation gets it's name) he vowed that, as long as he was able, he would use them to help anyone who needed it, and has stuck to that promise admirably. He is more than happy to defend the little man, even when that would put himself in a bad situation, and has shown that, if it ever came to it, he'd think nothing of putting himself in harm's way or possibly even dying to save the life of another. In terms of relationships with other people, Billy will most likely associate with and therefore be found around people his age; he's as sociable as the next teenager and will naturally attempt to balance his social life with his duty as a superpowered hero. He is also developing a serious interest in girls, though being a colossal dork around them, his attempts thus far to secure a date have bourne mixed results at best. He has yet to try his luck in Pandora, however. However, despite his awesome power, he is still young, and shows a pronounced naivety that is only exacerbated by his idealistic approach to situations. Though this is offset somewhat by the Wisdom of Solomon, it still remains that occasionally Billy, as Marvel, will make decisions that, although brave and well-meaning, are not the wisest course of action. Appearance Billy Batson: Billy is pretty much average in appearance. He stands at about 5ft 7in tall, has black hair and is slightly round-faced, though not in an unpleasant manner. He generally gives off an air of friendline ss and general helpfulness, and though it can be a little grating at times, it is usually a good thing to have him around. His eyes are blue, and he tends to wear jeans and some kind of red shirt no matter the day or weather. Captain Marvel: Once transformed, Billy gains the body of a powerfully-built young man, heavily muscled like a wrestler and standing at 6ft 3in tall. He wears a distinctive red-and-gold costume, with the iconic lightning bolt symbol on the front, and wears a white-and-gold cape. His hair and eyes remain the same colour, however; after all, spontaneously aging a decade is disguise enough. Relationships Illyana Rasputina - Good friends. Illyana's advice in most matters is invaluable to Billy, and even if she does embarass the heck out of him by pointing out his (lack of) fashion sense, she's stil one of his favourite people. Razputin Aquato - Superhero roomies! Billy likes that Raz can empathise with him, given their respective power bases, and it's always nice to have a partner when you're out patrolling for people who need help! Kanade Tachibana - Billy once had a very strong crush on her, though due to recent events, her capacity to murder people has shaken his faith pretty heavily in taking people at face value. He will probably still try to remain friends, though only time will tell if he ever properly trusts her again. Barbara Gordon - Library badasses. He very much likes his new coworker, and given their respective double-lives, it's likely they'll end up battling bad guys together as well as sorting books and trying to figure out which loans are overdue. In short, friends. Kitty Pryde - Aquaintances, and probably friends also. They work together as members of the Pandoran X-Men, and though Billy's never heard of a mutant before, it probably won't matter much to him anyway. She's a good person, and that's all that counts. History Born in Fawcett City, on the East Coast of the USA, Billy Batson's life took a turn for the worse when his parents were unexpectedly killed on an archaeological expedition by a traitorous helper. His uncle, a greedy and unscrupulous man who wanted to own the inheritance left to the lad, turned him out, making Billy homeless and without a dollar to his name. Wandering the streets and eventually finding a makeshift shelter down in an old abandoned subway entrance, Billy scraped together a living selling copies of the local paper. Until the night the wizard found him. Summoning him to the Rock of Eternity, the wizard Shazam explained that he was dying, and needed someone to take up the powers he had once wielded to fight evil and injustice wherever it reared it's head. He had watched Billy for some time, attempting to determine the nature of his heart, and ultimately decided that the young man was fit for the role, if he wanted it. Without hesitation, Billy accepted, and so became Captain Marvel. Battling various criminals and villains that threatened his home city and, sometimes, the world, Marvel gained many enemies; Mr. Mind, Kull the Conqueror, Ibac, the renegade former champion of Shazam known as Black Adam and foremost of all, the twisted Doctor Sivana. However, time and time again the Captain prevailed, defending Fawcett against all manner of plots and threats. Eventually, Sivana decided to put an end to the champion once and for all, and devised his most diabolical scheme yet; to steal the very powers that gave Marvel the ability to fight him. Stripped of his powers and trapped in his adult form, Billy was helpess, and Sivana imprisoned him in the rock of eternity before preparing to subjugate Fawcett City. Try as he might, Marvel could not budge the great boulder that blocked the way out of his prison, and as his exhausted muscles ached and his hands cut themselves raw trying to gain purchase on the rock, he began to despair. Slumping against the boulder, Marvel's heart broke at his failure to help the people of his city, especially when they needed him most. And then Sivana made his fatal mistake. Perhaps it was bravado, or a desire to torture his nemesis even further, but he began to magically project the sounds of Fawcett's citizens screaming into the tiny cave in which Marvel was trapped. No doubt this was an attempt to finally break Billy's resolve once and for all. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Rising, determined to free himself and save those people or die in the attempt, Captain Marvel pushed against the boulder one last time, pushing until his muscles screamed in agony with overuse. His hands became bloody with the effort, but still the Captain kept pushing. And then, as if by a miracle, the rock began to budge. The ancient heroes whose power he held within him had finally noticed the theft of their abilities, and once more surged to the aid of their champion. With a boom, the boulder flew aside from the cave. Captain Marvel was back. Realising that Sivana could only be stopped if his powers were removed, Captain Marvel seized his nemesis and flew with him, never letting go, until they both entered a huge stormcloud poised menacingly over the city. Eyewitnesses reported a blinding flash of lightning, the likes of which they had never seen before, and a blast of thunder like the end of the world. Neither Captain Marvel nor Doctor Sivana returned. Fawcett City entered a state of official mourning, lamenting the loss of a hero who had defended them when no-one else could, and who had finally made the ultimate sacrifice for them, passing on into what lay beyond. They were right, in a manner of speaking. Billy Batson certainly wasn't in Fawcett City any more. Even as the unconscious Captain fell, exhausted beyond belief by the strain of his efforts, black cords appeared as if from nowhere, arresting his fall, and bringing him to a new world entirely... Pandora History Since coming to Pandora, Billy has revealed his magical nature to Razputin Aquato, with whom he saved a family from a burning house, and has moved in with him, thus leaving behind the strangely depressing orphanage. At some point, he also met Illyana, and through her earning his trust, revealed the powers to her too, in the hopes that the more experienced mutant adventurer could help him cope with the job's more demanding aspects and provide advice when he needed it. Billy has also met both generations of Avatar, Aang and Korra, and is on his way to befriending both. His meeting with Aang was unremarkable enough, though he attempted to convince the Airbender that there was still hope of escape from Pandora, even if things seemed a little hopeless right now. Meeting Korra, however, was a far more volatile situation at first, as both mistook the other for the reason a group of farm-hands were fleeing in terror. When the real reason, a monstrous hydra appeared, however, both put aside their differences to fight off the beast and keep the workers safe. In something of a calmer series of events - though Billy still nearly got choked by a wayward fish hook - he made friends with Kanade Tachibana, and was even taught to fish after a fashion by her. Enjoying the company, as well as the chance to learn a skill that there was no way he could have learned in the city, Billy decided that Kanade was someone he wanted to be around more.